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SPEECH 



OF 




MR. JOHN W, JONES, OF GEORGIA 



ON 



THE PENDING WAR 



DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 



January 18, 1848 



WASHINGTON: 



PRINTED BY J. & G. S. GIDEON. 

1848. 



SPEECH 



MR. JOHN W. JONES, OF GEORGIA, 



ON 



THE PENDING WAR, 




DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 



January 18, 1848. 






WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED BY J. & G. S. GIDEON. 

1848. 



pies flowing from nature vhich warrant what, in the proper sense of the term, is 
called revenge amongst nations. Natural justice extends not further than satis- 
faction and security. Nations acknowledge no superior tribunal on earth; the 
inflicting of punishment is, therefore, an unwarrantable usurpation of power, 
which may entitle a people to the exercise of national ferocity and Gothic bar- 
barity, but not to the national right." And in the same chapter he further 
says, "Nations have but a limited right of reparation and defence; no more 
violence is lawful than that which is sufficient to afford satisfaction and security; 
neither are acts of hostility entitled to any further continuance; for, in either 
of these cases, compulsion and defence would be destitute of a just cause; the 
defender would consequently become guilty of an aggression, and give the ori- 
ginal aggressor a just cause for defence as far as the limits of a just and lawful 
defence are exceeded." Now, if these positions be tenable, and they unques-gj 
tionably are, it would follow, as legitimate conclusions, that antagonistic na-r 
tions, parties at war, cannot be simultaneously right; that both may at the 
same time be in error; that one may be right and the other wrong; and that 
each may be alternately right and wrong. 

Again, Vattel, in his very valuable and standard work upon the Law of Na- 
tions, says, in the chapter that treats "of the just causes of war," "whoever 
entertains a true idea of war, whoever considers its terrible effects, its destruc- 
tive and unhappy consequences, will readily agree that it should never be un- ^ 
dertaken without the most cogent reasons. Humanity revolts against a sove- 'i 
reign who, without necessity or without very powerful reasons, larishes the i] 
blood of Jiis most faithful subjects, and exposes his people to the calamities of | 
war, when he has it in his jDower to maintain them in the enjoyment of an I 
honorable and salutary peace. And if to this imprudence, this want of love 
for his people, he moreover adds injustice towards those he attacks, of how 
great a crime, or rather of what a friij;htful series of crimes, does he not become 
guilty! Responsible for all the misfortunes which he has drawn down on his 
own subjects-, he is moreover loaded with the guilt of all those which he inflicts 
on an innocent nation. The slaughter of men, the pillage of cities, the devas- 
tation of provinces, such is the black catalogue of his enormities. He is re- 
sponsible to God, and accountable to human nature, for every individual that 
is killed, for every hut that is burned down. The A'iolences, the crimes, the 
disorders of every kind attendant on the tumult and licentiousness of war, pol- 
lute his conscience and are set down to his account, as he is the original author 
of them all. Unquestionable truths ! — alarming ideas ! — which ought to affect 
the rulers of nations, and in all their military enterprises inspire them with a 
degree of circumspection proportionate to the importance of the subject." He 
further says: "The immediate consequence of the premises is, that if a nation 
takes up arms when she has received no injury, nor is threatened with any, she 
undertakes an unjust war. Those alone to whom an injury is done or intended 
have a right to make war." The sentiments of this celebrated author, as se.t 
forth in the impressive paragraphs that I have just read, and their obvious per- 
tinence and applicability to many of the facts connected with the war now being 
waged, have induced rae thus to refer to them, beheving also that a proper un- 
derstanding of them would materially aid in illustrating what are the legitimate 
objects and ends of war, and therefore the better j^repare us to act intelligently 
upon a subject fraught with such immense consequences to both Governments, 
and perhaps to the sacred cause of liberty itself. 

Entering upon the theatre of national legislation at this advanced stage of 
the war, in any remarks that I may make, it would very naturally and reason- 
ably be expected that I would take a prospective rather than a retrospective 
view of affairs; that I would direct my attention to the future rather than the 
past. I shall endeavor to do both. In order to be correct in deductions, it is 
necessary to be correct in premises. We must 



*' Watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan, 
And learn the future by the past of man." 

And the father of Latin poets (Virgil) says: "Happy is the man who is 
skilled in tracing effects up to their causes;" and, although it cannot be expected 
that much additional light can be shed on this feature of the subject now, a 
chronological summary of the facts may not be improper. The opinion that 
I entertain in regard to the origin of the existing hostilities between the 
United States and Mexico may be expressed in few words. I believe that 
the war is the result of the joint operation of the stupidity, obstinacy, and 
presumption of Mexico on the one part, and the mal-administration of the 
affairs of this Government on the other part, and mainly by the folly and 
blunders of the present Administration. Mexico has for centuries been 
looked to by many as the El Dorado of the world, and I regret being compelled 
to say that our besetting sin is an insatiable desire to extend our bordefs, 
an incessant hungering to enlarge our domain. Territorial aggrandizement 
has been, and continues to be, the order of the day and age in which we 
live; and does not the sin of covetousness, and the curses consequent upon its 
indulgence, apply to nations as well as to individuals ? Most assuredly so. 
Ahab, King of Samaria, said to Naboth, the Jezreelite, ''Give me thy vine- 
yard; I will give thee the worth of it in money." But Naboth refused to sell 
his paternal inheritance; on which account false accusations were made against 
him, and he fell a martyr to the love that he bore to the land of his ancestors. 
Who does not love the land of his nativity and the home of his childhood ? 
Who does not venerate the soil that contains the ashes of his sires ? And how 
contaminated and depraved must be the heart of that man who desires or seeks 
unjustly to deprive an individual or a people of a patrimony so sacred ! It 
may be asked, is there any similarity of sentiment or any analogy in the con- 
duct of Samaria's King and the Chief Magistrate of this nation ? I answer, 
•'let facts be submitted to a candid world." The President, in his annual 
message of December last, says: "In like manner, it was anticipated that, in 
settling the terms of a treaty of limits and boundaries with Mexico, a cession 
of territory, esthnated to be of greater value than the amount of our demands 
against her, might be obtained, and that the prompt payment of this sum, (three 
milUons,) in part consideration for the territory ceded, on the conclusion of a 
treaty and its ratification on her part, might be an inducement with her to make 
such a cession of territory as would be satisfactory to the United States." The 
parity of the cases is too obvious to require further elucidation. The luxuriant 
grapes of Naboth's vineyard attracted the epicurean eyes of Ahab, and he 
wickedly resolved to possess them; and for this usurpation of another's rights 
he was made to repent in sackcloth. Xerxes loved the f^gs of Attica, and, 
preferring to adopt the ambitious policy of Mardonius rather than follow the 
wise counsels of Artabanus, he determined, right or wrong, to seize by conquest 
the land that yielded such delicious fruit; and that enterprise, conceived in sin 
and perpetrated in iniquity, destroyed the sovereignty of the Persian throne, 
and overthrew the vast empire of Darius. The fertile valleys that produce the 
olive and the vine, the vanilla, the manioc, and the pulque, are not the only 
objects that have charmed and allured the President. The shining diamonds 
and glittering minerals of that country are beginning to glisten in his imagina- 
tion. The hidden treasures of Guanaxuato, Catorce, Zacatecas, Real del 
Monte, &c., now haunt the chamber of his thoughts. In the bay of San Fran- 
cisco, and other harbors along the Californian coast, he has been told that our 
naval and commercial vessels, and our whale-ships, would find safety from the 
tempest; that along the Pacific shore commercial marts would spring up, and 
overflow with the unbounded traffic of the oriental world. These are hi^ 
views, and to accomplish them is his policy. 

That both Governments have departed from the strict rules of national rec- 



6 

titude I have no doubt, and that they have acted alternately and reciprocally 
aggressive is generally admitted by the intelligent and the candid; neverthe- 
less, it is my settled conviction, that if General Taylor had remained near the Rio 
Nueces with his command, and had not marched his forces across the desert to the 
Rio Grande, hostilities (unless otherwise provoked) would not have occurred. 

That the citizens oi Mexico had, some time prior to the commence- 
ment of the war, committed numerous outrages upon our citizens, and spolia- 
tions upon their property, is certainly true,* and that Mexico has failed to ren- 
der an equivalent indemnity for the same, is equally true. It should not be 
forgotten, however, that that government did liquidate the demands of our cit- 
izens to the amount of two millions twenty-six thousand one hundred and thirty- 
nine dollars and sixty-eight cents, and that a considerable portion of said as- 
sessment was paid prior to the commencement of the war. That the annexa- 
tion of Texas created deep and lasting heartburnings in the bosoms of Mexi- 
cans will be admitted by all who are acquainted with the histor}'' of the times. 
The Mexican envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. General Al- 
monte, then resident in this city, emphatically and officially protested against 
the joint resolutions of Congress upon the subject of annexation; and, a short 
time after their passage, he demanded his passpoits, and returned to Mexico, 
declaring that that act was a sufficient cause for war. Under the then exist- 
ing circumstances I am disposed to approbate the course adopted by Congress, 
and yet I have no doubt but it served to enkindle the fires of revenge, and stir 
up the latent animosity of the Mexican people, all of which was distinctly 
avowed in the diplomatic correspondence that ensued between the Hon. John 
Slidell and his Excellency Manuel de la Pena y Pena. That that transaction 
tended materially to alienate the affections, and to sever the friendship of the 
two nations, I am compelled to believe; and have we not cause to fear, that the 
fruits of that measure may yet prove to this Government and this country as did 

" The fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden. " 

Heaven grant that that accession may not become the wedge of Achan or a 
Babylonish garment in our camps, or as a Jonah on board our ship of State. 

It has been contended that the refusal of the Mexican government to receive 
and accredit Mr. Slidell as envoy extraordinary, &.c., disassociated with prior 
and subsequent events, was sufficient to justify the United States in waging 
war against that repubhc. Of the correctness of such a conclusion I am by no 
means convinced. Mexico agreed to receive him in the capacity of a com- 
missioner to treat upon subjects connected with the annexation of Texas, but 
refused to recognise him as minister plenipotentiary, &c. This provocation, 
of itself, was not, in my opinion, sufficient to warrant the prosecittion of a war 
in which we have lost some twenty thousand soldiers, and expended probably 
not less than one hundred millions of dollars, and the end is not yet. (See 
correspondence between Messrs. Black, Buchanan, Slidell, and Pena y Pena.) 

That the removal of General Taylor's command from Corpus Christi, on the 
Rio Nueces, to the east bank of the Rio Grande, (and thereby traversing the 
modern Mesopotamia,) was the proximate cause of hostilities, is now the set- 
tled opinion of perhaps nine-tenths of the people, including many of the leading 
and most distinguished statesmen and politicians of both parties. It was then 
that we crossed the Rubicon; it was then that the Euroclydon of war was let 

*The opinions of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren on this subject are too familiar to the 
members of this House to justify recital, as well as the details of Mexican ag;gressions, which 
were presented to Congress in 1837, in an able report made by the Hon. John Forsyth, of 
Georgia, 



loose, and all the sad calamities of Pandora's box were poured out upon both 
Republics, and all through the instrumentaUty of Executive misguidance; there 
terminated the bloodless achievement. 

In regard to the ownership of, and title to, the territory situated between the 
Nueces and the Del Norte, if time permitted, I could introduce much interest- 
ing and conclusive testimony. Senator Ashley, of Arkansas, in a speech that 
he made in support of annexation resolutions submitted by himself, says: 

" The third (of his own resolutions) speaks for itself, and enables the United States to settle 
the boundary between Mexico and the United States properly. And I will here add, that the 
present boundaries of Texas, as I learn from Judge Ellis, the president of the convention that 
formed the constitution of Texas, and also a member of the first Legislature under that consti- 
tution, were fixed as they now are, (that is, extending to the Rio Grande,) solely and professed- 
ly xcith a view of having a large margin in the negotiation with Mexico, and not with the expec- 
tation of retaining them as they now exist in their statute book." 

Again, Mr. Donelson, oui- charge d'affaires to Texas, sent by President Ty- 
ler to negotiate upon the subject of annexation, in a conimunication to Mr. 
Buchanan dated June 23d, 1845, and speaking of the country between the 
Nueces and Del Nortie rivers, says: 

" That country, you are aware, has been in the possession of both pai-ties. Texas has held 
in peace Corpus Christi ; Mexico has held Santiago, (near Point Isabel;) both parties have had 
occasional possession of Loredo, and other places higher up." 

Again, in a subsequent letter, dated July 11, 1845, Mr. Donelson says to 
Mr. Buchanan: 

" Sir : You will have observed that, in my correspondence with this Government and Texas, 
there has been no discussion of the question of limits between Mexico and Texas. The jomt 
resolution of our Congress left the question an open one, and the preliminary proposition made 
by this Government, under the auspices of the British and French Governments, as the basis ot 
a definitive treaty with Mexico, left the question in the same state. I at once decided that we 
should take no such position, (on the Rio Grande,) but should regard only as within the limits 
of our protection that portion of territory actually possessed by Texas, and which she did not 
consider as subject to negotiation." 

Hon. C. J. IngersoU, of Pennsylvania, said, in support of a resolution sub- 
mitted by himself upon the question of boundary : 

" The stupendous deserts between the Nueces and tlie Bravo, (the Rio Grande or Del Norte,) 
rivers are the natural boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon and the Mauntanian races. Ihere 
ends the valley of the west. There Mexico begins. Thence, beyond the Bravo, begin the 
Moorish people and their Indian associates, to whom Mexico properly belongs, who should not 
cross that vast desert if they could; as on our side, we, too, ought to stop there; because inter- 
minable conflicts must ensue from either our going south or their coming north of that gigantic 
boundary. While peace is cherished, that boundary will be sacred. Not till the spirit ot con- 
quest rages will the people on either side molest or mix with each other; and, whenever they 
do, one or the other race must be conquered, if not extinguished." 

Mr. Henry M. Morfit, who was sent as a Governmental agent to Texas by 
President Jackson in August, 1836, especially, in regard to annexation, in one 
of his despatches to this Government says : '-The political limits of Texas pro- 
per, previous to th« last revolution, were the Nueces river on the west," &c. 
And, on the 27th of August, of the same year, he writes thus: "It was the 
intention of this Government, immediately after the battle of San Jacmto, to 
have claimed from the Rio Grande, along the river, to the 30th degree of lati- 
tude; and thence due west to the Pacific." But the people of Texas finally 
concluded to contract their contemplated limits to the territory east of the Rio 
Grande. See House Journal No. 35, 2d Session, 24th Congress. 

The States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico, had not 
joined in with the Texan revolt against Mexico, nor were they subjugated by 
Texas; and that Texas should set up a claim to those States, or a portion of 
them, simply because her Congress had declared them within her boundaries, 



ahd that, too, as a mere matter of policy, is not only unreasonable, but absurd- 
The idea originates only in the grossest sophistry. Judge Ellis has distinctly 
avowed that the country west of the Nueces was only incorporated by legisla- 
tive action on the part of Texas in order to secure a large margin for negotiation. 
The Hon. Silas Wright, of New York, who, it is well known, stood pre-eminent 
as a statesman, refused to vote for the Tyler treaty on the ground that it included 
more territory than properly belonged to Texas; and hence, in a speech at 
\yatertown. New York, he said: 

" I felt it my duty to vote against the ratification of the treaty for the annexation. I beheved 
that the treaty, from the boundaries that must be imphed from it, embraced a country to which 
Texas had no claim, over which she hud never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right 
to cede." "It appeared to me then," hi continued, " If Mexico should tell us, 'We don't know 
you ; we have no treaty to make with you ;' and we were left to take possession by force, we 
must take the country as Texas had ceded it to us; and, in doing that, we must do injustice to 
Mexico, and take a large portion of New Mexico, the people of which have never been under 
the jurisdiction of Texas. This, to me, was an insurmountable barrier; I could not place the 
country in that positiorrt" 

I will now invite the attention of the committee to the opinion of the distin- 
guished Senator from Missouri, whose geographical and historical information 
upon this, as well as upon all similar questions, is perhaps as extensive and as 
accurate, if not more so, than that of any other gentleman in either branch of 
Congress; while discussing the subject of annexation, Mr. Benton said: 

*' With respect to Texas, her destiny is fixed. Of course I, who consider what I am about, 
always speak of Texas as constituted at the time of the treaty of 1819, and not as constituted by 
the Republic of Texas, comprehending the capital and forty towns and villages of New Mexico, 
now and always as fully under the dominion of the Republic of Mexico, as duebec and all the 
towns and villages of Canada are under the dominion of Great Britain. It is of this Texas — the 
old Spanish Texas — of which I always speak ; and of her I say, her destiny is fixed. What- 
ever may be the fate of the present movement, her destination is to return to her natural posi- 
tion — that of a part of the American Union. 

" I adhere to this discrimination between the two Texases, and now propose to see which of 
the two we are asked by the President of the United States to incorporate into the American 
Union." 

Mr. Benton then went on to show what provinces this line includes, their 
population, their towns, their cities, &c. 

"These," he says, " in addition to old Texas; these parts of four States ; these towns and 
villages ; these people and tei-ritory ; these flocks and herds ; this slice of the Republic of Mex- 
ico, two thousand miles long and some hundreds broad — all this our President has cut off from its 
mother empire, and presents to us, and declares it is ours till the Senate rejects it. He calls it 
Texas ! and the cutting off he calls re-annexation ! Humboldt calls it New Mexico, Chihuahua, 
Coahuila, and Nuevo Santander, (now Tamaulipas,) and the civilized world may qualify this 
re-annexation by the application of some odious and terrible epithet." 

And when the Tyler treaty was under cousideration in the Senate, Mr. Ben- 
ton offered the following resolution: 

" Resolved, That the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte into the American 
Union by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehending, as the said incorporation would do, a 
part of the Mexican departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, 
would be an act of direct agression on Mexico, for all the consequences of which the United 
States would stand responsible." 

He denounced the treaty in strong terms. He said: "I wash my hands of 
all attempts to dismember the Mexican Repubhc by seizing her dominions in 
New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. The treaty, in all that 
relates to the boundary of the Rio Grande, is an act of unparalleled outrage 
on Mexico; it is the seizure of two thousand miles of her territory without a 
word of explanation with her, and by virtue of a treaty with Texas to which 
she is no party." See Mr. Benton's speech, delivered in the Senate in May, 
1844. 

Senator Woodbury, now one of the associate judges of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, said, "Texas, by a mere law, could acquire no title but 
what she conquered from Mexico and actually governed. Hence, though her 



law includes more than the ancient Texas, she could hold and convey only 
that, or at the uttermost only what she exercised clear jurisdiction over." And 
surely no one will contend that Texas had then exercised civil jurisdiction 
over the disputed territory, and more especially along the Del Norte river. 

In the case of the United States vs. Haywood, (2d Gallis, C. C. R. 101,) 
the decision of the Supreme Court was, that " a territory conquered by an en- 
emy is not to be considered as incorporated into the dominions of that enemy 
without a renunciation in a treaty of peace, or a long and permanent posses- 
sion, neither of which is the case in this instance. 

Mr. Calhoun, endeavoring to repel the attacks made against the treaty pro- 
posed by him, and seeking to show that this Government never intended to 
claim the territory embraced in the act of the Texan Congress, but, on the 
contrary, that we were desirous to open a friendly negotiation with Mexico, in 
order to determine upon such a boundary as would be most convenient for both 
nations — to make known this purpose to the Mexican Government, he wrote 
to Mr. Green on the 19th of April, 1844, as follows: 

" You are enjoined by the President to assure the Mexican Government that it is his desire to 
settle all questions between the two countries which may grow out of this treaty, or any other 
cause, on the most Ijb.qral and satisfactory terms, including that of boundary.^'' 

Such unequivocal testimony from such high sources should, it seems to me, 
convince every unprejudiced mind that the territory between the Nueces and 
Del Norte was, to say the least of it, disputed territory, and may therefore very 
properly, in accordance with the usual custom of nations, be denominated for- 
bidden ground, so far as military movements were concerned. The President 
and the Congress of the United States, by their official acts, acknowledged the 
boundary as unsettled; and hence it is contended that to occupy with, or to 
march an armed force across, that territory, was a violation of the good faith 
of nations. 

The next point, Mr. Chairman, to which I desire to call the attention of the 
committee is, by what authority, or in obedience to whose orders, did General 
Taylor take up the line of march from Corpus Christi and cross the desert to 
the Rio Grande. It was, sir, in compliance with instructions from the Execu- 
tive, as communicated through the Secretary of War. On the 13th of January, 
1846, the Hon. W. L. Marcy wrote to General Taylor in these words: 

" Sir: I am directed by the President to instruct you to adrance and occupy, with the troops 
under your command, positions on or near the east bank of the Rio del Norte, as soon as it can 
be conveniently done with reference to the season and the routes by which your movements 
must be made." 

Sir, I have no disposition to scrutinize the acts of the present Administra- 
tion beyond what their character demands. As sentinels upon the watchtowers 
of our common country we cannot be too vigilant. Far be it from me unjustly 
to impugn the motives and purposes of the President or any other public func- 
tionary of the Government. It is neither my custom nor inclination to indulge 
in acrimonious animadversions upon the conduct of any individual, either in 
high or low stations. It could afford me no pleasure to believe that those in 
authority would knowingly and willingly depart from the faith of our sage and 
patriot fathers, or swerve from that high and pure political integrity which 
has so long and so uniformly adorned our national reputation; and while I 
shall take the liberty, in the discharge of my duty, to express my views of the 
official acts of the Administration frankly and unreservedly, I would wish to 
decide charitably upon its motives. I seek not to set down aught in malice, 
but would the truth unfold, happen what may. The President has originated 
a controversy, in which (from my connexion with the Whig party) it becomes 
my duty to participate. 

On the 15th of June, 1845, we learn from the official records of the Govern- 
inent that Mr. Bancroft, then of the War Department, informed General Taylor 



10 

that his ultimate destination would be the Rio Grande del Norte, while the ac- 
tion o{ Congress had indicated a willingness to negotiate in regard to the proper 
boundary, and had left the question open for that purpose; and in the following 
November Mr. Slidell was despatched as Minister Plenipotentiary, &c., for the 
purpose of settling the boundary of the disputed territory, which General Tay- 
lor a lew months thereafter was ordered to occupy, even to its extreme western 
limits, with the forces then under his command. Even so late as March, 1846, 
Mr. Buchanan, in his official capacity, urged Mr. Slidell not to leave Mexico, 
and knowing at the same time that our army was advancing to the Rio Grande. 
' Was not this blending Lhe voice of Jacob with the hands of Esau ? 

It was but a few days since that this House, in the adoption of an amend- 
ment to certain resolutions submitted by the gentleman from Massachusetts, 
(Mr. AsHMUN,) declared that the war now bemg waged with Mexico "was 
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United 
States;" and, not having had an opportunity to record my vote upon the amend- 
ment in the manner that I desired, I embrace this occasion to give publicity to 
my opinion upon that point. I lay it down as a proposition quite susceptible of 
proof, that notwithstanding the offences of Mexico may have been such (in the- 
opinion of many) as would have justified the United States ih making prepara- 
tions for war, nevertheless our Chief Magistrate was not therefore authorized 
or empowered, insidiously or otherwise, irrespective of the sanction of Congress 
then in session, to adopt such a course as he must have known would inevit- 
ably have led to hostilities. The war-making power was, by the framers of the 
Constitution, most wisely and expressly withheld from the Executive depart- 
ment; nor was this all important prerogative vested in the judiciary tribunal of 
the Government. To the legislative branch, to Congress, and to Congress only, 
was this great power confided; there let it remain. The eleventh clause of the 
eighth section of the first article of the Constitution reads thus: Congress shall 
have power to "declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make 
rules concerning captures on land and water." And this instrument should be 
our political text-book. The Hon. Joseph Story, one of the associate justices 
of our Supreme Court, and probably one of the most able expounders of inter- 
national law that has ever lived in this or any other country, in the 1165th sec- 
tion of his Commentaries upon the Constitution, says : 

"The only practical question upon this subject would seem to be, to what department of the 
National Government it would be most wise and safe to confide this high prerogative, emphati- 
cally called the last resort of sovereigns, ultima ratio regum. In Great Britain, it is the exclusive 
prerogative of the Crown; and in other countries it is usually, if not universally, confided to the 
Executive Department. It might by the Constitution have been confided to the Executive, or 
to the Senate, or to both conjointly." 

In another paragraph he says : 

" The representatives of the people are to levy taxes to support a war, and therefore have a 
right to be consulted as to its propriety and necessity. The Executive is to carry it on, and 
therefore should be consulted as to its time, and the ways and means of making it efl!ective. 
The co-operation of all the branches of the legislative power ought, upon principle, to be' re- 
quired in this, the highest act of legislation, as it is in all others. Indeed, there might be a pro- 
priety even in enforcing still greater restrictions, as by requiring a concurrence of two-thirda of 
both Houses." 

Again, the same author says, in the 1172d section, on page 64, vol. 1: "7%e 
power to declare war is exclusively in Congress.''^ Could language be more point- 
ed or significant. And the words of the 14S6th section of chapter 37, on page 
342, are these: 

" The power of the President, too, might well be deemed safe, since he could not of himself 
declare vrar, raise armies, or call forth the militia, or appropriate money for the purpose; for 
th^se powers all belong to Congress. In Great Britain, the King is not only commander-in- 
chief of the army and navy, and militia, but he can declare war; and, in time of war, can raise 
armies and navies, and call forth the militia on hie own mere will." 



11 

In Great Britain, and other monarchical governments, as Judge Story has 
intimated, the war-making power is in the King; and he says, further: '■^It 
might, by the Constitution, have been confided to the Executive,^'' &c. But, sir, 
it was not so confided. I thank God that the rights and the privileges of the 
American people are not yet legally subject to the will and the prerogative of a 
crowned head. The President has no right to involve the country in war. Es- 
tablish the precedent that the President may plunge tliis Government into war 
at his pleasure and option, and that, too, without the knowledge or consent of 
Congress, and the gentle spirit of peace will take its flight to a more congenial 
clime, perhaps never to return, unless it be to chant the dirge of our country's 
freedom. The genius of liberty would soon forsake the scenes ol revolution 
and carnage, to seek another and a safer home; and here, perhaps, in this great 
Temple of Liberty and equal rights, monarchy would rear up her relentless throne. 

I would not unnecessarily condemn or denounce the Executive. My ob- 
ject is to preserve inviolable the Constitution. It is conceded by all that the 
opinions of President Madison upon political questions are entitled to much 
confidence, and upon this subject I esteem them invaluable. In one of his let- 
ters (signed Helvidius) upon the proclamation of the neutrality of 1793, he 
writes as follows: 

" Every just view that can be taken of this subject admonishes the public of the necessity of a 
rigid adherence to the simple, the received, and the fundamental doctrine of the Constitution, that 
the power to declare war, including the power of judging of the causes of war, is fully and exclu" 
lively vested in the Legislature; that the Executive has no right, in any case, to decide the ques- 
tion whether there is or is not cause for declaring war; that the right of convening and informing 
Congress, whenever such a question seems to call for a decision, is all the right which the Con- 
stitution has deemed requisite or proper; that for such, more than for any other contingency, this 
right was specifically given to the Executive. 

" In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confide* 
the question of war or peace to the Legislature, and not to the Executive department. Besides 
the objection to such a mixture of heterogenous powers, the trust and the temptation would be 
too great for any one man; not such as Nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but 
such as may be expected in the ordinary succession of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse 
of Executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive 
will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the Executive 
hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of ofEce are to be multi-. 
plied, and it is the Executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, 
that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the Executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest 
passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast, ambition, avarice, vanity, the 
honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace. 

" Hence it has grown into an axiom that the Executive is the department of power most dis- 
tinguished by its propensity to war; hence it is the practice of all States, in proportion as they are 
free, to disarm this propensity of its influence." 

These extracts are too cogent to require comment; they are conclusive and 
irrefragable. We have had eleven Presidents, but one Washington. That ex- 
ecutive who assumes, or, rather, usurps the authority to exercise the war-mak- 
ing power joe?- se, strikes a direct blow at the vitals of the Constitution, consti- 
tutes himself at once the master and not the servant of the people, violates the 
fundamental principles of republicanism, bids defiance to legislative authority, 
and erects the standard of the one-man power; and such, sir, is the tendency, 
but, I forbear to say, that such is the design of the Administration. But I will 
say, that the course pursued by the present incumbent is an assumption of au- 
thority unknown in the history of his predecessors, and one, it is sincerely to 
be hoped, that will never be imitated by any successor. I, sir, am no alarmist, 
but I shudder for the liberty and the perpetuity of that republic where the power 
is constantly and covertly stealing from the many to the few; its concentration 
cannot long remain harmless; and sooner or later, like the accumulated caloric 
that disgorges the melted minerals of the burning mountain, and scatters its fiery 
lava upon all around, so too will the pent-up power of autocracy pour out its 
consuming elements from the despot's throne, if the sovereignty of a govern- 
ment is permitted by legal or assumed authority to concentrate in the bosom of 



12 

one man. The presaging thunders of Vesuvius came too late to warn the in- 
habitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum of their impending and awful doom; the 
price of liberty is constant vigilance. When the boundary between Spain and 
the United States was unsettled, President JeiFerson refused to order our troops 
to take possession of the disputed territory upon the express ground that "Con- 
gress alone was constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condi- 
tion from peace to war." How diametrical has been the course pursued by the 
powers that be; and how often is it the case that, 

"man, proud man — 

Dress'd in a little brief authority, 

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 

As make the angels weep." 

And how appropriate are the words of Solomon to the signs of the times, where 
he says, ''When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice; but when 
the wicked beareth rule the people mourn." 

Then, I ask, under all the circumstances, shall the Congress of the United 
States, shall the representatives of a great and a free people, shall a represen- 
tative from the noble State of Georgia, one of the good old thirteen, from the 
land of Gwynnett, and Hall, and Walton, the land of Oglethorpe and Crawford, 
shall we all, shall any one of us, forsake the ark of our country's salvation in this 
hour of trial? Shall we, who have bound ourselves by a solemn oath to the throne 
of eternal justice, by the sacred confidence derived from our constituents, by 
the love that we bear to our common country, shall we bow down in truckling 
subserviency and craven vassalage to the edicts of Executive misrule; or shall 
we slumber at our post, or sit mutely down, and with folded arms and silent 
tongue see the great tree of liberty, planted and cultivated by our ancestors, 
and under whose genial branches the nation has prospered and reposed in safety 
for more than half a century, shall we behold it quivering in every limb be- 
neath the uplifted and scathing halberd of Executive folly and usurpation, and 
make no effort to rescue it from destruction? Shall we see it eradicated, and 
not attempt to arrest the spoiler's blows? No, sir; we will sound the tocsin of 
alarm; we will cry aloud and spare not; the slumbering indignation of a too con- 
fiding people must be aroused. I know not what course others may pursue, 
for myself I can only say, 

"That though perils did abound as thick as thought could rasike them, 

And appear in forms more horrid, 

Yet my duty, as doth a rock against the chiding flood, 

Should the approach of this wild river break, 

And stand unshaken " by the Constitution. 

" For great were the hearts, and strong the minds, 

Of those who framed in high debate 

The immortal league of love that binds 

Our fair, broad empire, State with State." 

What, sir, is the present condition of Mexico? The reverses and the vicissi- 
tudes of that ill-fated republic have been varied and multitudinous. After the 
conquest of Cortez, dating from 1521, she remained a Spanish colony for more 
than three hundred years. In 1821 she made a glorious and a successful strug- 
gle to be free; having shook off the manacles and the fetters of Castilian bond- 
age, she became an independent republic. She then possessed the valor and 
the courage to erect the standard of independence, but lacked the virtue and 
intelligence to maintain it; for, as early as 1835, we find her republicanism 
suddenly transformed into centralism or consolidation; and where is she now? 
Conjecture answers, where? The hideous forms of anarchy on one side and 
monarchy on the other, and overrun and broken down by the invading army of 
a sister republic. What was right in regard to the things of yesterday may be- 
come wrong when applied to those of to-day. Our present relations with Mexico 
are not what they were in the incipiency of this injudicious conflict. She may 



13 

have sinned, but is her punishment never to have an end? A few years ago, 
and she was not without hope. This Government was the first to recognise her 
independence, and to introduce her to the family of nations. But hers was a 
delusive dream, and widely different has been the reality of her once buoyant 
hopes and flattering expectations. And the history of her brief and sad career 
but too strikingly exemplifies the scriptural admonition, " Let him that thinketh 
he standeth take heed lest he fall," for now, in all her affairs, public and pri- 
vate, civil and military, she bleeds at every pore. Cortez and Iturbide, Hidal- 
go, Allande and Morelos, Bustamente and Santa Anna, have each, in their 
turn, risen and reigned and fell, and Mexico is vanquished. She has acted 
her part in the drama of nations, and sooner or later will the curtain of an- 
nihilation fall upon the sanguinary and disastrous scene. Torn to pieces by 
the treachery, intrigue, and mendacity of her corrupt and ambitious leaders; 
galling and cringing beneath the iron yoke of a bloated and mercenary priest- 
hood; and driven from seaboard to mountain, and from mountain to seaboard, by 
the invincible soldiery of Taylor and Scott; too proud and too obstinate to yield, 
and yet too feeble any longer to protect and defend her silver sierras and her 
verdant valleys; unwilling to abandon her ranches, her haciendas, and her al- 
tars, and that soil which she has so long and profusely watered with the blood 
of her heroes; worried and perplexed by her domestic and foreign financial ex- 
actions, and weighed down by the leaden dynasties of ignorance, and groaning be- 
neath all the calamitous consequences of war, shepresents a melancholy (picture 
of humiliation and distress, individually and nationally, only equalled in modern 
times by the tragic fate of unfortunate and down-trodden Poland; and although 
grim-visaged war hath not smoothed his wrinkled front, the watch-word and 
war-cry of patrician and plebian is " God and Liberty." Imagination sees the 
last scattered relics of her discomfited armies assembling around the thundering 
crater of Orizaba's smoking peak, or the snow-clad crests of the mighty Popo- 
cateppti, and there, like Warsaw's last champion, 

" Oh! Heaven, they cry, our bleeding country save; 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave? 
Yet though destruction sweep these lovely plains. 
Rise, fellow men, our country yet remains: 
By that dread name we wave the sword on high, 
And swear with her to live, for her to die." 

Or, rallying within the moss-covered walls of her ancient cemeteries, and 
clustering around the crumbling tombs of their fathers and their mothers, and 
exclaiming — 

"When Hope's expiring throb is o'er, 
And e'en Despair can prompt no more. 
This spot shall be the sacred grave 
Of the last few, who, (vainly brave,) 
Die for the land they cannot save." 

To be brave is to be generous; to be noble is to be just; and to be great is to 
be good. The American eagle, guided in her upward and her onward flight by 
the dauntless spirit of unwavering chivalry, and sustained and supported by 
the indomitable prowess of American arms, now spreads in triumphant gran- 
deur his broad and potent pinions over that magnificent palace where once rose 
up the spacious halls and the golden domes of the Montezumas. The banner 
of our country waves in victory upon the embattled heights of Monterey, and 
sends forth its stellated scintillations from the lofty towers of San Juan d'UUoa, 
and along the walls of the great city of the Cross; while the sepulchral voice 
of death whispers from the bloody fields of Resaca de la Palma and Sacramen- 
to, and from the Aceldamas of Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo, and comes up in 
wailing tones from the gory plains of Contreras and Churubusco, and in dolo- 
rous notes from Chapultepec and Molino del Rey, saying enough! enough I 



14 

and the Alameda, the Paseo, and the Plazas of her political metropolis and her 
•commercial emporium are the Champ de Mars of our armies. The sceptre of 
the ancient Aztecs has well nigh- departed, and the hopes of the Mauritanian 
race have fled forever; — exhausted and emaciated M«xico is tottering upon the 
verge of utter subjugation; and drunk with the commingled blood of friend 
and foe, she is reehng to the grave of poUtical extinction — she is left to choose 
between desperation and disgrace, and to be or not to be, is now the question. 
But I would ask gentlemen, I would ask this House, and this country, if the 
virtue and the magnanimity of our patriot fathers have degenerated in the 
bosoms of us their sons? Let me hope not. Shall the hitherto spotless fame 
of our gallant army and navy be tarnished by a participation in the sanguinary 
and inglorious scenes of savage warfare? Shall they become polluted by the 
spoils of war, and be degraded by the ignominious rewards of Vandalic licen- 
tiousness? Never, never, I trust. The eyes of the world are upon us, and 
the criticisms and the prejudices of all Christendom aroused. True glory is 
the reward of virtue and not vice. The power and the glory of a nation rests 
in its mental attainments and its moral excellencies. 

The mighty and the multitudinous tribes of the Red Men of the forest have 
given back, and still farther back, at the approach of our ajicestors and our- 
selves, and they continue to recede. Twice have the veteran legions of 
Albion's Isle acknowledged the supremacy of our arms; and the victors of 
Casti^ and Arragon have repeatedly succumbed to our invincible forces. 
Will hot this suflrice? Looked up to as the model Government of the world, 
and holding out the segis of freedom to every land and every clime, let us not 
be unmindful that "righteousness exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach 
to any people." A great cause has been committed to our keeping — let us be 
faithful to the trust. The civil and political destiny of twenty millions of peo- 
ple are suspended, perhaps, upon the deliberations of the Thirtieth Congress. 
Our fathers pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," to 
bequeath us freedom. Over this rich boon let us watch with a vigilance that 
never sleeps, and guard with a jealousy that admits no encroachment, and pro- 
tect and defend it with a valor that never surrenders. Though not satisfied 
with the manner in which the war now pending was commenced, I must be al- 
lowed to say that, from the moment the first gun was fired up to the present 
time, no man has advocated the defence of the country more zealously than 
myself, and I shall always advocate its defence to any extent that circumstan- 
ces may require. I will stand by the country in prosperity or in adversity — in 
peace or in war, in glory, in gloom, our country first, last, and forever. But 
will the time never come when we may honorably bury the tomahawk and pass 
round the calumet of peace; when we may "beat our swords into plough shares 
and our spears into priming hooks?" Until that period shall arrive, let our 
conduct resemble our Armorial Insignia; let the caduceus of Pax always accom- 
pany the spear of Mars. Mexico is to all intents and purposes a conquered na- 
tion; her marauding banditti and her guerrilla parties are our only enemies; 
such a foe is unworthy the steel of our victorious armies. But because Mex- 
ico Is conquered, it by no means follows as a matter of necessity that her rights 
are extinguished, unless we are prepared to assert and to send forth the dis- 
graceful proclamation that "might is right;" that to the victors belong the 
spoils, and that we as a nation are bound together by the cohesive power of 
public plunder; that war is our game, and that our neighbor's lands are the 
stakes. Who, who I ask, is ready to endorse such a sentiment? I am not, 
and never will be; and I blush for that American who can so far forget himself 
and the honor of his country as to promulge such a stigma upon the land of 
the free and the home of the brave; for should that policy predominate, (which 
may Heaven forbid,) the character of our Government and country will be 
disgraced, blasted, gone. Shall the morning star of our nation's birth-day, 



15 

which dawned so auspicious and glorious amidst the black clouds of the Revo- 
lution, and whose virgin rays lighted the pathway of our ancestral sages and 
heroes, be struck from our pohtical galaxy? Shall the radiant sun of our inde- 
pendence, whose bright beams have so long relumined the altar of freedom, 
go down prematurely behind the murky clouds of national dishonor, and be 
lost forever in the thick darkness of political apostacy? No, no. 

To. disapprove or condemn the folly and the blunders of the Administration, 
is not to oppose the war. Those who have dared to gainsay the opinions, and 
to criticise the policy of the Chief Magistrate, and they are not a few, (for 
Whigs and Democrats, verbally and through the press, have denounced his 
course from the beginning,) have been denominated and traduced as aiders 
and comforters of the enemy. Sir, such epithets are not applicable to me, for 
I have not opposed the war abstractly, but I have opposed the Administration 
and the policy that provoked the war. In that I am guilty to the fullest extent, 
and am willing to abide the verdict of my country. "Upon what meat doth 
this our Csesar feed, that he hath grown so great ?" Is he so wise, that he 
cannot err .-' Is he so immaculate, as to be above suspicion ? No, surely; 

" But he that stands upon a slippery place 
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up." 

I hope never to see the day when an Executive ukase shall bridle the mouths 
of politicians and people; when his fiat shall become the doorkeeper of our lips, 
and his will be the arbiter of our thoughts and the keeper of our consciences. 
In these United States there is no anti-war party when defence is necessary. 
Blistered be the foul tongue of slander, and scorched the lying lips of those 
who would dare utter such a libel upon the patriotism and valor of the Ameri- 
can people. No, sir, the sin of "aid and comfort" lies not at the door of the 
Whig party; it never had a place in their ranks; it never will. The Whigs 
never furnished Mexico with a general to command her armies. They never 
wrote to Commodore Conner, ^^ If Santa Jinna endeavors to enter the Mexican 
ports, you will allow him to pass freely.''^ Nothing, nothing could have "aided 
and comforted" Mexico so much as the return of her JYapoleon. The Whig 
party will never blur the escutcheon of their country's fame, or obstruct the 
progress of their country's glory. The valor and success of the intrepid Scott 
and the indomitable Taylor scorns the allegation of aid and comfort on the part 
of the Whigs. The mangled and bleeding bodies of the Spartan Butler, the 
fearless and unyielding Clay, the sad fate of the brave McKee and the daring 
Hardin, and many other noble spirits who fell covered with chivalric honors, 
declare the accusation false; and the bleaching bones of half our fallen sol- 
diery, in heaps upon the battle-fields of Mexico, are enough to crimson with 
shame the accuser's face. But a day of reckoning and retribution is fast ap- 
proaching, yea, almost at the door. A few more official blunders, a few more 
wanton encroachments upon the sovereignty of the people, a few more pre- 
sumptuous vetoes, and the epitaph of this Administration will be seen upoji 
Belshazzar's wall, "Weighed in the balance, and found wanting." Soon shall 
those who welcomed the coming speed the parting guest; soon shall the origi- 
nators of those portentous clouds that now lower around our governmental ho- 
rizon, from the depths of their troubled bosoms, in anguish of soul be heard to 
exclaim, Alas ! alas ! had we served the country but half so faithful and with 
half the zeal that we have served ourselves, the people would not, in this our 
extremity, and in our declining years, have forsaken us, and left us for all 
coming time to the gnawings of our remorseful fate. And their final soliloquy, 
to be pronounced on the 3d of March, 1849, will be. Farewell, a last fare- 
well, to halcyon hopes and fond expectations to palaces and to power ! We 
have touched the highest point of all our greatness, and now, from the zenith 
of our earthly bliss, we fall to rise no more ! Like a bubble on the wave, or a 



16 

bright exhalation in the evening, we vanish from the gaze of men and the 
plaudits of office-seekers, our names to be stricken from the catalogue of wor- 
thies, and hurried away by the relentless current of universal disapprobation to 
the far-off regions of the world's forgetfulness, soon to sink beneath the obscure 
eddies of oblivion's waters. 

Having succinctly noticed the circumstances that originated the war and 
briefly adverted to the relative condition of the republics engaged in it, it only 
remains for me to express my. views upon what I conceive to be the best mode 
of terminating hostilities and securing an honorable and satisfactory peace. 

If experience is worth any thing, if like causes under like circumstances 
produce like effects, there is much in the spirit of the times to excite apprehen- 
sion for the future. The sage of Monticeljo said, if there was any one princi- 
ple above aU the rest that should be more deeply and permanently fixed in the 
minds of Americans, it was that they should have nothing to do with conquest. 
That nation whose prominent characteristics are military conquest and territo- 
rial aggrandizement, has much to fear from overaction. That we have the will 
and the ability to assert and defend our rights, I rejoice to know; and yet I 
should regret to believe that the love of war is to become our ruling passion 
and national avocation. All history admonishes us of the evil consequences of 
waging war for the sake of spoils. A few examples will serve to demonstrate 
the fact: Alexander annexed Macedon and Greece by military coercion; was 
successful in the three great battles of Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela; marched 
his legions through Persia and into India, and went on conquering and to con- 
quer, until he became the Master of Europe and Asia, and assumed the reign 
of universal dominion. Overloaded with the triumphs of battle and the plun- 
ders of war, and intoxicated with success, he became sick and tired of life, and 
sought a premature grave in the Bacchanalian banquets of Babylon; and the 
liberties and the power of Greece were sacrificed upon the altars of military 
antagonism and political intrigue. Rome conquered Carthage, and seized upon 
her territory as indemnity for the expenses of the war, and proceeded from 
conquest to conquest, until she acquired the title of the "Proud Mistress of the 
World." But, in process of time, the tide of her triumphs began to ebb; her 
dependencies, one after another, revolted. The Ostro Goths, Visi Goths, and 
Gepidae, rushed down from their mountain homes and fastnesses, and kept up 
such an incessant slaughter upon the Romans, that they were forced to yield 
their acquisitions to those Scandinavian Vandals who alternated as allies and 
enemies, until that mighty Empire was reduced down to the narrow limits of 
the Imperial City of the Seven Hills. The fate of Csesar is not forgotten. 
Charlemagne overrun nearly all Europe with the veteran armies of France to 
increase his power and enlarge his dominions, but domestic strife and civil 
wars ensued, which were followed by division and subdivision of his kingdom, 
until France resumed her original boundaries. And the more modern career 
of the mighty son of Corsica was not materially dissimilar in its results — a 
career by which thrones were made to tremble, nations to stand aghast, and aU 
the Eastern continent convulsed; and yet Napoleon found his Ultima Thule upon 
the memorable plains of Waterloo, and an exile's grave upon the barren Isle 
of St. Helena; and France is now no more than what France was. The bloodiest 
picture in the book of time is the history of the Crusades, that were intended 
to wrench from the hand of superstition and idolatry the keys of the Holy Se- 
pulchre, and expel the infidel Saracens from Palestine. Millions of lives were 
lost in those awful contests between the armies of the Crescent and the Cross; 
and yet, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Turbaned Moslem still 
treads with unhallowed step the consecrated soil of Canaan, and Mahomedan- 
ism, in all its sacrilegious enormity, continues to desecrate the sacred localities 
of the Holy Land. [Here Dr. Jones' hour expired.] 

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